This is my first attempt at making a Portal 2 map. The puzzles are laser themed by reflecting the beam in different ways.
If you like my map, give it a thumps up on Steam Workshop. It would help me greatly!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=324781932
NOTE: I have changed the name from "Cave's Refractive Anomaly" to just "Refractive Anomaly".

Files

Posts

Hi I'm making a portal 2 mod and I need maps. I am having trouble making them so I decided to go download some. Would I be able to use your map in my mod? It will say that the map was made by you. Thanks fakin2
Bananite

> **Posted by will2k**
>
> I haven’t played Portal 2 in quite a while and when I saw your map, I had the perfect excuse to fire up the game again. It’s nice to see a polished map after the influx of mostly low-quality maps made in the in-game editor.
>
> The puzzles progress nicely as the player advances through the rooms; they’re not easy to be spotted upon entering the room but at the same time they’re not illogical and frustrating to make the player rage-quit. I quite liked the last 2 puzzles with what you did with the “floating” laser cubes – the last one took a couple of minutes of head scratching and another couple of minutes to properly align the floating cube after several “misaligned” tries but it was fun and satisfying to solve it and execute the planned solution without getting furious or frustrated.
>
> The usage of Cave’s comments was a nice bonus rarely seen in custom maps; it helped spice things up with a touch of humor and the fact that they played once the puzzle is solved made it all the more satisfying. The various posters from the 60s era scattered around the chambers further added to the humor touch.
>
> The background soundtrack was nicely chosen to be playing in a non-intrusive or annoying way.
>
> It was enjoyable to see that you used various elements in puzzles such as laser, weighted cubes, hard light surfaces, jump plates, moving panels and spiral beams to make gameplay as varied as possible and to break monotony. Good job.
>
> All shiny panels/cubes/plates were reflecting a default overly-bright pink-ish skybox which means you either did not include cubemaps or forgot to build them to get accurate reflections.
>
> In the last puzzle/room, I was able to solve the whole thing without using the moving timed-platform (the one right in the front of the final exit door). If this is intentional to allow the puzzle to be solved in more than one way then it is fine. If this not the case, then it is better to remove this platform to avoid confusing players with unneeded puzzle elements.
>
> Well done on this map, it was quite enjoyable.
>
> Keep up the good work.
Thank you for the kind and informative comment. I updated the map based on your feedback and all lighting issued should now be resolved.
I played around with cubemaps but that did not work. Apparently the issue was that I had used some vertex textures on the ceiling, that was why some look flickery/shiny. That is now fixed. Also I fixed some hard edged shadows by replacing those large observation rooms with smaller ones.
I'm very glad that you liked the map and I have gotten some very positive responds from others so I might do another puzzle in the future.
Thank you for the feedback!
Level Design Student

I haven’t played Portal 2 in quite a while and when I saw your map, I had the perfect excuse to fire up the game again. It’s nice to see a polished map after the influx of mostly low-quality maps made in the in-game editor.
The puzzles progress nicely as the player advances through the rooms; they’re not easy to be spotted upon entering the room but at the same time they’re not illogical and frustrating to make the player rage-quit. I quite liked the last 2 puzzles with what you did with the “floating” laser cubes – the last one took a couple of minutes of head scratching and another couple of minutes to properly align the floating cube after several “misaligned” tries but it was fun and satisfying to solve it and execute the planned solution without getting furious or frustrated.
The usage of Cave’s comments was a nice bonus rarely seen in custom maps; it helped spice things up with a touch of humor and the fact that they played once the puzzle is solved made it all the more satisfying. The various posters from the 60s era scattered around the chambers further added to the humor touch.
The background soundtrack was nicely chosen to be playing in a non-intrusive or annoying way.
It was enjoyable to see that you used various elements in puzzles such as laser, weighted cubes, hard light surfaces, jump plates, moving panels and spiral beams to make gameplay as varied as possible and to break monotony. Good job.
All shiny panels/cubes/plates were reflecting a default overly-bright pink-ish skybox which means you either did not include cubemaps or forgot to build them to get accurate reflections.
In the last puzzle/room, I was able to solve the whole thing without using the moving timed-platform (the one right in the front of the final exit door). If this is intentional to allow the puzzle to be solved in more than one way then it is fine. If this not the case, then it is better to remove this platform to avoid confusing players with unneeded puzzle elements.
Well done on this map, it was quite enjoyable.
Keep up the good work.